


Two by two

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Multi, Post-Sburb, quadrants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-03
Updated: 2011-11-03
Packaged: 2017-10-25 16:03:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bluh bluh feelings. Karkat and John talk quadrants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two by two

Later, when it's all over and there is time for John to properly engage in being such a colossal idiot that his idiocy bends the rules of gravitational orbits for several local fucking galaxies, any day now Karkat is going to have to invent another new universe just so there are animal bodily functions and diverse languages he can employ to properly emphasize the nuance of what a writhing canister of fanged intestinal worms John's brain is, the subject of quadrants keeps coming up.

 

They're in the room where Terezi and Dave keep all their horrible art shit, sitting on a pile of cushions left over from one of Rose and Kanaya's marathon feelings jams. Speaking of people who need whole new languages created; those two wordy creepsters could talk a horrorterror to sleep. 

 

Tentatively, and without saying a word about it, John and Karkat are holding hands. 

 

Karkat's given up on pretending there isn't a halo of cartoon spades around his head whenever he thinks about John's vomitous face and stupid adorable smile. He's always been a romantic -- in other words, he's too fucking absurd to know what's good for himself. 

 

But they're not talking caliginous or ashen today, thank whatever shithive maggots deity is responsible. John has a habit of pretending that Karkat doesn't have an auspistice quadrant at all, which Karkat suspects goes back to that taboo against incest that humans have (which is so arbitrary and stupid that Karkat wishes he could stab himself through both eyes with icicles made of pus). The taboo seems to extend as far as not wanting to think about Jade and Karkat's somewhat unique auspisticing relationship. 

 

She keeps him from loathing himself too much, and he keeps her from being too hard on herself for the things she isn't strong about. For the most part the roles are largely metaphorical, since Karkat doesn't go on the memos very often these days, and there's only one Jade (to Karkat's eternal lamentations) but the principle remains the same: ashen is the quadrant of "sort it the fuck out or I'm turning this motorized transportation around and we are going straight back to the hive". They're good at that for one another. 

 

Today's topic of John's particular interest is moirallegiance, and the conversation has consisted of John saying cheerful, corpsegrindingly wrong things and Karkat shouting at him. 

 

Human relationships are confusing and stupid and weird. 'Friendship' isn't an emotion, but 'love' sometimes is. 'Love' is what you feel for both pale and flushed mates, but it isn't because there's no such thing as palemates for humans. And being 'in love' is different to 'love'; 'in love' is flushed but not pale. 

 

"It seems to me," John is saying, like there's any chance in all the fathomless void of space that his observation will be anything but the screaming death throes of all that's rational and sane. "That the heart quadrant is the equivalent to boyfriends and girlfriends, and the diamond one is BFFs. Does that make it make more sense? Why I say one is 'in love' and one is just 'love'?"

 

"No."

 

"But..." John frowns. "Romance is  _romance_. It's synonymous with flushed, isn't it? Your heart beats faster and your cheeks go hot and you feel flustered and funny and excited. That's 'in love'. And... doesn't 'pale' obviously mean it's not as red? Not as deep a feeling? That's why I say it's not a romance."

 

"No, knucklefucker, it means it's  _pale_. If it were 'not as red' then that's what it would be grublicking  _called_." 

 

Karkat growls, his usually creative vocabulary failing him. Because how is he meant to explain that just because pale isn't flushed doesn't mean it's lesser? 

 

John's right about what the heart quadrant's like, for the most part. When Karkat thinks about Terezi it's like his stomach is full of the flappings of miniaturized mutant troll wings. His pulse races and he wants to make her laugh her gleeful, evil laugh even if about half of the time she's laughing at him. 

 

He wants to look out for her and make sure she's okay and have sloppy makeouts that leave them both breathless. 

 

So yes, the heart quadrant is called flushed for a reason. But that doesn't mean that's the only way of being 'in love', to use John's scum-fondling terminology. 

 

Being pale is just what it sounds like. If flushed is hectic, pale is calm. It's the peace that trust brings, clear and cold. You fall in moirallegiance... in pale love with someone, and you know in that second that you want to keep them safe from the world and from themselves, no matter how they might kick and rage against your counsel. You know what their worst is and you accept it without hesitation, as deeply as you embrace their best. 

 

All the quadrants are love. The reason that's a word Karkat's never given thought to is because it's  _useless_. It has no nuance or depth as a term, it's too general and inarticulate. 

 

If flushed love is a wanting love, then pale love is a having love. 

 

Karkat had already filled his other quadrants (yes, even the black one, depressingly occupied as it was by a bulgemaggot asshole human) by the time he'd ended up in that showdown against a wild and splattered Gamzee, and so he recognized the sudden feeling that washed over him. The tilt of the world as his emotional compass resettled itself to include a newly-found direction. 

 

When he'd stepped forward to calm Gamzee, he hadn't even felt all that afraid. He'd just felt  _pale_. Calm and certain. When they'd embraced, he'd trembled with the overwhelming sense of  _I am going to look out for you, and you are going to look out for me_. He hadn't thought he'd ever feel so protected ever again, not with his lusus gone. 

 

Even thought it's not a concupiscent quadrant, Karkat thinks that in a lot of ways diamonds is the most naked of the romances. Your moirail knows you better than you know yourself. 

 

John claims his questions are about trying to be culturally sensitive, but Karkat knows it's because John remains as befuddled as ever by the idea that he's somehow ended up sort-of maybe hate-dating someone.

 

"We're  _friends_. We  _don't_ hate each other. You've  _admitted_  that you don't hate me. Why are we doing this?" he asks, for approximately the thousand millionth time. 

 

Karkat rolls his eyes. "It's not... 'hate' and 'love' in human language are fucking pathetic words, okay? They barely mean fuckall. It's not like your idea of 'dislike'. It's more like... rivarly?" He winces at the uncertainty in his own words. "Or, fuck that. Your kismesis challenges you. You want to be worthy of them. And you demand that they be worthy of you. It's pretty fucking romantic if you just pay one iota of the most fleeting attention." 

 

"Why not just have a matesprit? Why not just date Terezi? It feels weird having a... a sort-of boyfriend, who has a girlfriend!"

 

"You can't play one of your games of Earth checkers if all the pieces are red, can you? If you're sitting on the same side of the board as the other player. You need an opponent." 

 

"Plus Terezi would lick the pieces a lot. Drool checkers," John adds. He's still smiling, but he looks a little more serious than usual. "I just think that spades is kind of grown up for me. I'm not even allowed to watch most movies about people who have angry passionate love affairs yet, much less have one myself! Can't we just, I don't know, be John and Karkat? Do we have to fit a quadrant?"

 

Karkat's got no question in his head that he's black as pitch for John, but if John isn't ready to call his own feelings that just yet, Karkat will try to be a culturally tolerant fucker for a change and accept that. "What happened to that whole 'I'm not a homosexual' thing, anyway?"

 

"You're from a different universe, your dad was a crab, and you want to go on stab-dates. I decided gender was a pretty silly place to draw the dealbreaker line."

 

"So does that mean you'll make out with Jade while I watch?"

 

John goes a little bit green. "Uh. No." 

 

Karkat sighs. "Human romance rules are stupid."

 

"That's not very culturally tolerant of you, fucknuts," John retorts, and gives Karkat's hand a squeeze. "But back to subjects that aren't me making out with my  _sister_ , you disgusting alien freak... we're still super-young, you know? We have time to take stuff slowly." 

 

Karkat blinks, thrown by John's words. Young. Six sweeps is pretty young. He forgets that. He's done so much, seen so much. Loved enough to have his whole quadrant card full. Everything has been so urgent for so long. He doesn't know if he remembers how to be anything but as fast as possible, moving all the time to stay one step ahead of death and game over. 

 

"Okay," Karkat says, settling back against the pile. "Let's take it slow." 

 


End file.
